


Sleeping Beauty

by DenDragon14



Series: Dysfunctional Newsies [4]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Budding Love, Companion Piece, Cute, Developing Relationship, Epilepsy, Epileptic! Race, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Narcolepsy, Narcoleptic! Spot, No Smut, Self-Indulgent, Sweetness, friends - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22474519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DenDragon14/pseuds/DenDragon14
Summary: Romeo is curious about the seemingly always sleepy young man that Race seems to have taken a liking to. Race wished that he could remember what Spot had told him about what he had, but everything after that epileptic episode had been blurry and vague...A companion piece to the first piece in this series, titled "Something They Can't Understand".
Relationships: Racetrack Higgins & Jack Kelly, Racetrack Higgins & Romeo (Newsies), Spot Conlon & Racetrack Higgins, Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Series: Dysfunctional Newsies [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608244
Comments: 9
Kudos: 56





	Sleeping Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance for any typos, that's probably due to me trying to multitask.  
> Currently, I think I am walking on a tightrope that is the fine line between normal and depressed, so I've been trying to do some writing to keep the sad feelings away. Cute, soft, fluffy things are generally not my style when I write, so bear with me.

**Sleeping Beauty**

Spot used to be a normal kid.  
But somewhere in his fourteenth year of life, the universe decided to hurl something at him that not even he understood at first.

Being a problem of his person, he was the first to notice a difference. He first noticed a change in his energy during the winter, and at first, had chalked it up to seasonal depression. However, when spring rolled around and he still found himself being exhausted at the end of the school day for no good reason, he started to worry.  
If people noticed a difference, they didn't say anything. It wasn't really until his last year of high school and first year of university that people actually started to notice that there was something off with Spot Conlon.  
  
The doctors said it was depression, his mother had thought it was due to the fact that the teen years and early adult years could be rather crazy and just assumed he was overly stressed. His friends thought he was a party animal and had an erratic sleep schedule as he tried to juggle school, work, and social events. He was, but then again, Spot had always been an easily overly stressed individual but fairly decent at juggling the different aspects of his life. In the end, though, neither the professionals nor his own mother was of much help so he turned to hunt for an answer on the internet.

His searches were vague at first, but eventually, he found a site where he was able to pinpoint the symptoms he was experiencing and line them up into the category of a sleep disorder since that was where the majority of his symptoms fell. He researched each sleep disorder he came across until he finally narrowed it down to the most likely suspects.

Sleep Apnea and Narcolepsy.

He compared the two of them and meticulously combed through site after site, and seeing the same symptoms pop up again and again. Each time confirming that this is indeed what he had, it had to be; his symptoms didn't match anything else like it did with this.

The excessive daytime sleepiness. There were periods of the day where it seemed like lead blocks had been attached to his eyelids and were trying to drag his eyes closed and he had to fight the overwhelming urge to close his eyes, just for a second.  
  
Bouts of muscle weakness triggered by strong emotions, such as excitability or laughter. A new word he added to his vocabulary; Cataplexy. He had that sometimes but he wasn't an individual that was bursting with laughter or positive emotions all that often.  
  
Sleep paralysis. God, he never wanted to experience anything like that again. The feeling of someone sitting on his chest as they attempted to suffocate him was still fresh in his mind, and that had happened months ago.  
  
Hallucinations that occurred on the cusp of being asleep or on the cusp of waking up. More new words to add to his vocabulary: Hypnopompic and Hypnogogic hallucinations. He supposed that explained some of the very strange things he'd been feeling as he tried to drift off to sleep. It also helped quell the nagging little thought that he was losing his shit and going off the deep end.

Insomnia. This he had to laugh at considering that it was contradictory in the fact that the sleep disorder struggled with people staying awake, not with struggling to fall asleep. But the further he read into the symptom, he realized that, yes, he did have that. Struggling to stay asleep and struggling with waking too earlier were more likely than with struggling to fall asleep; he had no problem with that.

After years of not knowing what he had, of not knowing how to explain to others that he had no control over when he fell asleep, he finally had an answer. Sure, it wasn't diagnosed by a professional, but it was something, considering that he had, or had had in the past, all the symptoms.

Narcolepsy.  
He was narcoleptic.

* * *

The blink and miss it moments was probably the worst for him. It was almost like watching a movie where it skipped a scene and left the viewer feeling confused as to what the plotline was. At the time, before he knew what he'd had, he thought he was experiencing blackouts and it was worrying him to such a point that he wanted to withdraw completely.

His roommate, Hot Shot, had been the first to notice that something was off with Spot. He assumed it had to do with the fact that Spot was asking to see the guy's notes from this morning's class despite being in the class that morning. At first, Spot had fibbed and told him it was because he took shitty notes and couldn't read his own writing sometimes and wanted to look at the second set of notes to make sure he'd gotten it correct. But, if he was honest, Spot had sections of blank pages in his notes because his eyes kept closing and his brain would shut off and one of those blink and miss it moments would happen. He later learned that these episodes were called micro-sleeps. 

It was actually Hot Shot that had shaken him out of one of these during class one morning.  
  
"Dude, you sleeping enough," Hot Shot whispered, concern written on his face. Spot nodded and turned back to his notes, which had petered off the page at an angle and when he looked at the last few lines, the words themselves had no association with one another nor the subject that the professor was even lecturer on. Once again, after class, he had asked to see Hot Shot's notes and copied them down in a different journal so he didn't have to look at his own atrocious writing and how every few pages the words slanted right off of the page.

Hot Shot was the first person he told, mind you, he was the first person who asked if something was going on, and the dude being as mellow as a hippie, didn't think it a big deal. He certainly didn't treat Spot any differently, which he was super appreciative of. It was more than he could say for others; some treated him like he was frail and it was probably the reason that he stopped getting invited out to parties. Nobody wanted to deal with fragile individuals because they always get broken.

But Spot wasn't fragile, not by a longshot, and the fact that Hot Shot saw that strengthened their bond a lot and he was glad to call him both roommate and friend. 

Spot didn't have many friends.

* * *

Race, Romeo, and Jack sat at a table out in the middle of the hub. Their meetup had supposedly been to go over notes for an upcoming history exam in a class they shared, but it had turned into a social meeting within about ten minutes.  
  
"Hey, Race." Jack shut his book and jerked his head over to the southern corner of the hub. "Your knight in shining armor is over there. Why don't ya go say hello." Romeo's eyes drifted up from his textbook which he'd been flipping through to look at the few pictures scattered throughout the pages and over to where Jack had indicated.  
  
"Every single time I see him he's always snoozing," Romeo said. "He must be a double science major or something to be tired like that all the time."  
  
Race glanced across the hub to where he saw Spot sat positioned under a tree, his back slumped against its trunk. His arms were folded over his chest, his chin resting on his chest. It was obvious that the shorter young man was asleep despite the fact that a book was propped open on his lap. Race thought he looked rather peaceful.  
  
He hadn't known Spot too long, maybe about four months now. After their rather strange and somewhat embarrassing first meeting, they had kept in touch although their main way of contact was still through text, although Jack was the one pushing him toward actually hanging out with the guy sometime this year.  
He knew that Spot's major was undeclared and that his dorm room rested on the other side of campus to Race's. He wasn't sure if Spot was much into the frat party scenes but he didn't seem like the type. He remembered, very vaguely, that Spot had some sort of condition, but the word escaped his mind; his mind after a seizure was utter crap, so whatever Spot had told him was all a blur.

He packed his textbook away and grabbed his bag and got up from his seat at the picnic table and headed over to where Spot was, his intention on seeing about having those blurry memories clarified. Jack and Romeo followed behind him like baby ducklings.

"Uh, hey Spot..."

He nudged Spot with his toe. This was enough to rouse the boy, who peered up at him, clearly annoyed. He reminded Race of a cat his mother had had that grew severely pissed if someone had to wake it or move it from it's resting place under the sunlight.

"...What do you want?"

Race lowered himself down onto the ground to sit next to Spot while Jack and Romeo took up places across from him. But before he could say anything, Romeo inserted himself into the conversation without so much as an introduction.  
  
"Why are you always sleeping when we see you," Romeo asked as he sat down on the grass across from them. Race glared at his friend and wanted to slap him; Romeo seemed to often lack a filter between brain and mouth. Spot glared at him too and Race saw Romeo gulp, clearly intimidated by the smaller young man.  
  
"Why do you care?"  
  
"He's just curious," Race explained. "And I know you mentioned to me an' Jack that you had something, but I can't remember the word-"  
  
"Narcolepsy," Spot said, cutting him off. "I have narcolepsy."

"What's that?" Romeo asked. Again, Spot glared at him and Romeo shifted uncomfortably. "...sorry. I'll keep quiet."

"Do you want me to explain it?" he asked. Jack shrugged, indifferent. Romeo nodded eagerly and Spot sighed heavily and slammed shut the book that was sitting on his lap. The three of them listened intently as Spot explained Narcolepsy as simple as possible for all of them to understand. Race thought he could relate on some level- Narcolepsy, as well as Epilepsy, had to do with some malfunction within the brain, although unlike Narcolepsy, Epilepsy was a more well-known condition. Both could be a hereditary issue, however, Narcolepsy was a supposed immunological condition and both could develop at any time during someone's life.  
  
When Race fell into a fit, it was generally because the nerve synapses in his brain were all wonky, whereas narcoleptics lacked something called orexin/hypocretin in their brains which was responsible for controlling the sleep-wake cycle. The more Spot explained, the more intently Race listened. It was clear from how Spot talked about the topic that he knew a lot about it and Race thought it was rather attractive in how well-spoken he was as he continued to tell Jack and Romeo about it.

"Don't they got pills for that?" Jack asked.   
  
"They do, but I personally refuse to use prescription drugs unless it is absolutely life or death necessary."  
  
"Huh," Romeo said, his head tilted in thought. "That sounds really tough, dude. Kudos to you on not taking any prescription drugs though."

"Well," Jack said, "We should get going. We didn't get much studying done for that test and Katherine is probably looking for me."

Romeo, missing the cue, turned back to Spot and Race, intent on staying with them. Jack whacked him on the back of the head and dragged Romeo to his feet. He slung an arm around the younger boy's shoulder and whispered something in his ear.

"Oh." He nodded and smiled at Race sheepishly. "Jack and I are going to go. See you around. You too, Spot."

"See youse fellas around," Jack called out as he and Romeo started walking backward toward the huddle of picnic tables they'd been at earlier. "We should hang out sometime soon, Spot."

"Yeah, we should hang out sometime....Maybe just us," Race said as he could practically feel Romeo's and Jack's eyes boring holes into his back. Spot stared up at him for a minute, his lips pursed in thought. After a moment, he nodded.

"Sure. I'll text you later."

* * *

He was surprised that Race had asked him to coffee even though he had agreed to hang out with the guy. He'd entered his number into the guy's phone out of Jack's insistence but he hadn't thought that Race might actually want to be his friend. He had more than enough phone numbers in his contacts that were strictly for school purposed, the family that he never heard from or supposed 'friends' although he never really hung out with anyone other than Hotshot, Bart, and Smalls.  
  
But just thinking that Race wanted to be friends warmed his cold, concrete heart. Perhaps he even wanted to more than friends if this meeting they were going to have could be considered a date. But he didn't want to get his hopes up, especially considering that Race was nearly twenty minutes late. He was just about ready to call it quits and leave when he was startled by the frantic ringing of the bell as someone barged into the cafe.

"I am so sorry I'm late," he said, somewhat breathless, as though he'd been running. "Jack was whining about something that had nothing to do with me but of course he ropes me into whatever lover's spat he's having with Katherine so...yeah." He placed his bag down at the seat across from Spot. "Thanks for waiting though. I'll be right back, just going to get something to drink."

Spot waited patiently as Race got a drink. He flopped heavily into his chair, coffee in and hand, still steaming hot. 

"You're not getting anything?" Race asked. Spot shook his head and gestured to the water bottle he had sitting on the coffee table between them.  
  
"I don't drink coffee."

"So, you don't drink coffee..." Race glanced at the coffee bar and then at the lack of caffeinated beverage in Spot's hand. "So, why'd you want to meet here?" Spot shrugged. It had been the first place that had come to mind, plus, it was smaller compared to some of the other public places around campus; compared to other coffee shops, this place was relatively quiet and cozy and he liked the atmosphere it provided.  
  
"You said you wanted to meet for coffee, so I picked a coffee house, is that okay?"

"Yeah, but if you don't drink it you could have just said so."  
  
"Most people think it's strange that I don't drink caffeine, not even tea."   
  
"Really?" Race asked, eyebrows raised. "Not even tea. So, no caffeine in your diet?"

"No, I just get it from chocolate." Race smiled and leaned forward.

"So youse got a sweet tooth, huh?" he asked. Spot shrugged, he'd never openly admit that to someone, but yes, he did have a sweet tooth. The only people that knew about this were his mother and Hotshot, and Hotshot had only found out because of the stash of chocolate that Spot kept taped to the underside of their desk. It was embarrassing to admit and the one time he told someone he liked sweets, they'd showered him in all things chocolate and confectionery and Spot wondered if he was being fattened up like Hansel from Hansel and Gretel.

Their conversation moved onto other things, basic interests of another, although Race was the one that did most of the talking, which was just fine with Spot. Even when he was younger, he preferred to listen over talk, since people often liked to talk about themselves and with him being so quiet and open in listening, people spilled embarrassing info about themselves. Race though was a bit different. He prattled on about others around him, and sometimes he'd include himself in the story, but he had lots of things to say about his friends, good and bad.

Spot yawned and rubbed at his eyes and yawned again. That wasn't a good sign. Generally when he started yawning was a sign to him of an impending sleep attack. And now, when he glanced at the clock on the far wall of the cafe, he saw that it was in between the hours that he was tired no matter what he did. But he tried his best to listen intently to whatever Race was saying, knowing well enough that within twenty minutes, he wouldn't even remember this conversation. 

There was a short lull in the conversation as Race actually took the time to drink some of his whatever the fuck-iato he'd gotten. Spot probably wasn't going to get another opening to leave anytime soon, so he packed away the laptop and water bottle he'd brought along.

"I should get going," he said suddenly as he got to his feet, stifling another yawn. Race glanced at his phone for the time. They'd only been there for perhaps twenty-five minutes, and Race had shown up late, and although Spot didn't want to cut their meeting short, the growing urge to close his eyes grew stronger with each passing moment as his energy slowly fizzled down to empty.

"Oh, okay." Race said, disappointment written clear on his face. Spot shouldered his backpack and turned to head out, intending to head back to his dorm. "Would you want to nap together?" Spot froze and turned to look back at Race, his face stoic and deadly serious. 

"What?" he asked. He wasn't sure if Race was joking. From the few things he knew about him, and from their text messages between one another, he knew that Race was very much a class clown: If labels were being assigned, that was what he was going to label Race as--a class clown. He didn't think there was a better term for the guy's personality other than annoying sometimes.

Race held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not trying to make a joke. I mean it. If you're tired, would you want to go and take a nap together, like in the library or something?"

Warmth spread up his neck and into his cheeks, embarrassed about his overreaction to Race's simple proposal. He was always quick to anger whenever anyone, friend or not, made a comment regarding him "being sleepy all the time", or being a buzzkill because he "needed to go home and have a nap to recuperate".

"I-uh-sure."

* * *

They ended up in the library, as he had suggested and found a very secluded and vacated corner in the area that was specifically for studying purposes. The small little cubicle had been set up with a table and four chairs, intent for group studying, but Spot went and sat along the nearest wall. Race sat down next to him so that their shoulders were touching.

They talked for a bit and Race listened as Spot complained about his English professor. Spot stopped midsentence, cut off by a yawn. Since they'd met up for coffee, Race had seen Spot doing that a lot more along with rubbing his eyes and his temples every so often. He wondered if he was literally fighting sleep as they spoke. If he was, Race couldn't help but feel bad for keeping the poor guy awake. In some sense, it loosely reminded him of an aura he'd get just before a seizure; sometimes he could prepare himself for those by getting to a bed or a safe spot on the floor

"You can use me as a pillow," Race said quietly, "I mean if you want to." For a moment, Spot hesitated and Race could practically hear the gears turning in the guy's head as he made a decision. Slowly, Spot lowered himself down until his head rested in Race's lap and they were staring at one another. Spot had a light pink tinge to his cheeks, and by the heat that Race felt in his own face, he was sure he was blushing too.

"Is this okay?" he asked, stifling a yawn. Race nodded and the two fell into a comfortable silence.

He was surprised at how quickly Spot fell asleep, but he wasn't irritated. He was actually quite pleased that Spot had taken him up on the offer, considering that they hadn't known each other all that long and Spot seemed like a grumpy individual even on a good day, so Race wouldn't have been offended if he hadn't wanted the closeness of company. Gently, he petted Spot's hair and smiled. 

"A real sleeping beauty, ain't ya?"

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this feel free to leave kudos or comments; either is appreciated. Also, my apologies if I've explained epilepsy wrong; I am not epileptic, so I went off of what I've read in books and on the internet. The explanation on Narcolepsy though is a mix of my own experiences as well as stuff I've read in books or on the internet.


End file.
